Andy snorted. “Even though she was going to shut your clinic down?”
“I’m mostly privately funded. You could cut off government grants but the clinic rarely got them anyway. She couldn’t have shut us down. I didn’t kill her.”
“You were always harassing her. She told me, you always chased me off so that you could make passes at her and then when she refused to sleep with you, you fired her.”
Did he really believe that? “She quit when she found out I was a shifter and then started telling people I had harassed her.”
Andy opened his mouth and then closed it again. His hands clenched. “I… I know where your children are! With Grandma and Grandpa. But they’re all white-haired and feeble, aren’t they? It’d be a shame if something happened that they couldn’t protect the children from…”
Eneko snarled.
A grin crossed Andy’s face even as he jumped back. “Oh, not such a tough guy now are you? Then there’s those two women that keep hanging around. Your harem girls or whatever you shifters do. Heard one of them ran into trouble already. Bet there will be even more trouble by the time this is all done, eh?”
Do no harm. The oath he had taken when he became a doctor was the only thing stopping him from grabbing Andy and beating him senseless. His bear snarled, demanding that he defend his children and mate. Even it knew the situation, though. It wasn’t in Eneko’s nature to be violent. Ever since he was a child, he had always felt like there were better ways to resolve conflict than to start beating the crap out of someone.
In this case, though… in this case he was sorely tempted.
“Yeah, I bet she’d love the human touch,” Andy continued. His eyes brightened and a sneer crossed his face. “Maybe I’ll take her out to a nice dinner and—”
“Get out of my home.” Eneko tried to force himself to be calm. Glancing out the door he saw that the cops were watching intently. His fury increased as he realized what this was. They were trying to provoke him into attacking so that they could use it against him. “Get out.”
Andy stepped a little closer. “Make me, Bear. You think you can just order me around? Well, guess what? You can’t.”
Eneko snarled, deep in his chest. “Get out of my home right now. Or I will gather up all my friends’ lawyers and I will sue you for harassment. Those cops? I’m going to sue them, too. I’ll sue the whole lot of you and when I’m done, you won’t have shoes to stand in.”
Apparently, the threat of financial loss was even more terrifying than the threat of physical violence.
Andy’s eyes went huge and he took one step back, putting him outside. He spluttered, but Eneko quickly shut the door and locked it. The non-shifter pounded on the door for a few minutes, screaming profanities. Two of the bears Marcus had left here quickly appeared. Seeing them, Andy took off past the cops and jumped into his own car.
When is this going to end?
As Andy drove off, another car pulled up. Eneko tensed, wondering who it was this time. To his surprise, it was Rachel Higgins. She spoke urgently with the cops, her arms wrapped around her distended belly. Her pregnancy was fully mature; even from this distance, Eneko could see the shape of her stomach meant that the baby had dropped. Given the way she winced every few minutes, she was having contractions, too.
Eneko yanked open the door and raced down the pathway. Rachel’s expression turned to relief when she saw him. The two bears stood between her and the cops, and the non-shifters looked furious.
“You’re not allowed outside of your house!” one of them shouted.
“I’m not allowed off the property,” Eneko shot back. He moved to Rachel’s side and put a hand on her stomach in time to feel it squeeze. “How far apart are the contractions?”
Rachel shook her head, her eyes wide. “A few minutes. I haven’t been able to time them. My husband is at work and I couldn’t get hold of you.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she clutched his sleeve. There was the scent of amniotic fluid and blood clinging to her. Glancing down, he saw that her pants were soaked through. Her water must have broken some time ago. He sucked in a deep breath to calm himself and considered the situation. He needed to be able to think clearly about this.
“You need to get to the hospital,” he told her.
“No!” Rachel shook her head, a fierce look coming over her face. “I’m not going to have them clamp my baby’s head and rip him from my body.”
Eneko understood what she meant. The rate of infant injuries was much higher in hospitals for shifters than non-shifters. And given the fact that no other doctor would take her to begin with… He nodded and scooped her into his arm.
“You, call Jasmine,” he ordered one of the bears. “Rachel, do you have a midwife?”
“You’re all I have.”
The two cops spluttered. One of them pulled a cellphone out, but Eneko didn’t care. He carried Rachel back into his house and laid her down on the floor. Then he went to the bathroom and collected towels to spread beneath her before setting water on to boil.
Panic threatened to claw at him but he refused to give it any sort of credence. He hadn’t aided in a birthing since medical school. Even then, he had only done it once. But that didn’t matter because Rachel needed him. The body was built for this, it would do most of the work. He just needed to keep her calm and centered. And for that, he needed to be calm and centered.
He returned to Rachel and helped her to remove her soaked pants, then checked her dilation. Nine centimeters. She was ready to give birth right now. Eneko kept his voice firm but soothing. Later he wouldn’t be able to remember a single thing he said, but it worked with Rachel. He moved her to a squatting position, since it would better facilitate the birth than the way medical tradition had women lay. Jasmine and Lori returned to the home at some point. Eneko had them bring the warm water and throw a towel in the dryer for when the baby was born.
It took several hours, but eventually a tiny form slipped out of Rachel. Eneko caught it and immediately handed the baby to Jasmine, who started to rub it down.
“You’ve got a little boy here,” she said softly.
Behind her Lori made a soft noise in her throat. “Wow… I’m never having kids.”
Eneko shot her an annoyed look as he palpitated Rachel’s stomach, helping her to deliver the afterbirth. Soon, mother and child where sitting together on the chair, drenched in sweat, the baby’s soft whimpers filling the air. Eneko and Jasmine cleaned up the mess while Lori was off hiding, presumably so she didn’t have to touch the mess. Eneko was exhausted, but he smiled at Jasmine.
“Well, that was dramatic, wasn’t it?” he said. “But all’s well that ends well.”
“Yeah. With everything else happening, I forgot that you still have patients.”
The door opened and a bear guided in Joseph Higgins. Eneko quickly greeted him and led him to the living room, where Rachel was. Joseph dropped to his knees beside her and they started to talk in soft voices. Rachel started to sob, the emotions from the birth apparently too much to keep in at the sight of her husband. Eneko gathered the rest of the towels and shoved them into a basket before taking them to the laundry room.
“Are you going to be able to keep using these?” Jasmine asked, glancing at the blood-and-fluid stained towels.
Eneko shrugged. “Bleach?”
Jasmine smiled back at him, but it slipped away. “Do you want more children?”
Given what had just happened, it wasn’t surprising that it’d be on her mind. Eneko was surprised, though. Having kids was a big responsibility. One that Sadie hadn’t been up to. He knew that Jasmine was different, that she would never walk away, but he wasn’t certain what to say. Did he want more children?
“I… I haven’t really thought about it,” he told her eventually. “I suppose I always assumed that I wouldn’t have the opportunity. What about you?’
Jasmine gave him a hesitant smile. “I don’t know either. I’ve always wanted to have kids. I
never thought that I’d have to give birth to them. I think… I think that if we were going to have more children, I’d like to adopt them. Get them out of the foster system. If I can save kids from having the sort of life I had… But Maite and Luken… how would they feel? They’re still so young, I don’t want them to think that I’m not their mother…”
Eneko squeezed her hand. “We’ll figure it out. But if this doesn’t end how we want… if I end up in jail, I want you to watch after the kids. I know that Bobby and Sam will want to, but they’re not young anymore. I want you to—”
“Of course.” Jasmine brushed her mouth to his. “I will.”
They went back out to see the new family. Both parents cuddled their baby, cooing over him. Rachel leaned into her husband’s embrace. Tears still poured down her face and she closed her eyes.
“I was so worried about him. But he’s okay. He’s okay. He wasn’t hurt.”
Hurt? Eneko’s brow furrowed. Jasmine’s hand tightened in his and he glanced over at her. There was a look on her face that he couldn’t decipher, then she smiled again. Without a word she turned and left the room again. Eneko watched her leave, wondering why it felt like she knew something that she wasn’t telling him.
Chapter Fifteen
It wasn’t long after Eneko proclaimed mother and baby healthy and sent them back to their own home before more police arrived. Jasmine was shocked but the two cops that had tried to prevent Rachel from entering the Alava home–the same ones that apparently escorted Andy right in–claimed that Eneko had violated the terms of his release and had acted aggressively towards them.
Jasmine was about ready to attack those cops as Eneko was handcuffed, but he caught her eye and shook his head. “It’s going to be okay. We all know what really happened. I need you to phone Clifford.”
“Your lawyer won’t help you wriggle out of justice this time,” one of the cops growled. “We know you killed that woman, don’t think you’re going to get away with it.”
Jasmine’s vision tunneled in on that cop and her jaguar yowled. “Look, you—"
“Jasmine.” Eneko’s voice was soft, cutting her off. “Call Clifford.”
The cops bustled her out of the way. Her hands clenched and she wanted to scream and rage. She wished she could just shake them and make them see what was really going on here. But Eneko wasn’t going to be helped if she was arrested because she was acting aggressively towards the cops. Somewhere behind her Lori was already on the phone but Jasmine didn’t pay attention to who she was talking to.
“He didn’t kill anybody,” she said as Eneko was dragged out of the house. Marcus and his men were deep in an argument with the detectives. She rushed over to them. “He didn’t kill anybody. Jeremiah Wilder was stalking Jana Adler and he told me that he saw a black bear attacking her. Eneko has white fur.”
The detective gave her an annoyed look. “I don’t care. Whatever you have to say, you’re just covering for your boyfriend. So, either you bring us someone who’s willing to confess for the murder or just keep your nose out of our business before we arrest you.”
Jasmine started to lunge forward, but Marcus caught her around the waist. He hauled her back. The detectives both glared at her. It took all of her strength to bite her tongue and not scream curses at them. Then she saw Andy and Jerimiah both standing across the road with their cellphones out, filming the scene. Claws sprouted from her nails. When Marcus hauled her back inside, he saw that her eyes had turned amber-gold, the pupils becoming slits.
The bear deposited her in the sitting room and shook his head. “You need to back off.”
Jasmine opened her mouth to protest.
Marcus held up his hand. “Right now all you are is the girlfriend who will do anything for her man.”
“But I—"
“That’s not what I’m saying you are, it’s what they’re painting you as. And they’ll continue to paint you like that. So, you need to stay calm. Eneko needs your support, okay? Not you trying to get him justice.”
Jasmine didn’t respond. Marcus left the house again, and this time she stayed inside. He was right. She wasn’t going to do any good getting herself in trouble. An arm wrapped around her and she jumped, but it was Lori.
“Come on,” her sister urged. “Let me take care of you for a change.”
“They’re not going to listen unless we have someone who will confess,” Jasmine murmured as she allowed her sister to guide her away. “They won’t even consider Jeremiah Wilder, will they?”
Lori made a humming noise in her throat. “Look, I was thinking about it again… and I don’t think it was him. He had a gun. Why would he beat her to death when he had a gun? And she was left on the clinic’s doorstep. Maybe whoever did it was trying to save her… I don’t know, Jazz. There’s something we’re missing.”
Jasmine slumped onto the couch. She sat there for a long time, her head in her hands, her mind churning. She couldn’t think of what to do now. Everything was falling apart. Maybe it was best to leave this to the lawyers. Clifford had gotten Eneko out of jail once, perhaps he had more up his sleeve. This whole situation was extremely politically charged…
Politics.
Lori was talking to someone in the hallway but Jasmine ignored it. Instead she grabbed her laptop and pulled up the internet. Andy’s anti-shifter YouTube channel, the one where he had uploaded Eneko throwing him back that day, was full of videos from the protests. Perhaps there was a clue there. Something that would help her...
What they were saying made Jasmine sick to her stomach, so she muted the videos. Lori laughed her flirty laugh and Jasmine rolled her eyes as she continued on.
The video of Eneko’s ‘attack’ was third on the list. Jasmine kept her eyes on Jana and the interactions she had while the rest of the events took place. When Eneko grabbed Andy and shoved him away from Rachel, Jasmine paused the video. Jana’s hand was wrapped around Rachel’s wrist. Jasmine inched the feed forward. Jana moved in close to Rachel and whispered something in her ear that made the other woman cringe back and wrap her arms around her belly.
At some point Lori brought her tea. Jasmine ignored it as she watched the rest of the videos. There was a lot of Jana’s face in the camera, but nothing else stood out to her.
“I was so worried about him. But he’s okay. He’s okay. He wasn’t hurt.”
Jasmine’s stomach dropped as she remembered what Rachel had said. And the strange, thin line that looked like a scar she had seen on the baby’s back when she was rubbing him down. She had never seen a human child so young before and had dismissed it but…
“Jazz?”
Her head jerked up. Lori stared down at her with a concerned expression. Jasmine got to her feet. “I have to go. I think… I have to go.”
“Jasmine Rowlands, where do you think you are going?” Lori ran after her.
“I have to go talk to someone.”
Lori grabbed her wrist. “Who?”
“Rachel Higgins. The woman who gave birth here.” Jasmine swallowed hard. Was it sheer desperation leading her to this chase? Maybe, maybe not. In any case it didn’t matter. Not right now. “I’m hoping she can help. If nothing else I can at least make sure that she has another doctor to go to, right?”
Lori’s brows pinched together, but Jasmine pulled away. She ran to her car and jumped in, her heart hammering in her throat. She didn’t allow herself to think as she drove to the Higgins’ house (she had heard them give Eneko their address). She didn’t even knock when she got there. Instead she walked right in and found Rachel and her husband sitting in the living room. Rachel was in tears, her arms wrapped around her baby.
Jasmine hesitated. What right did she have to be here?
They won’t listen to the truth unless they have someone to confess to the murder.
“Eneko was arrested again,” Jasmine said, trying to keep her voice even. “Jana Adler threatened you, didn’t she? She threatened your baby.”
Rachel’s face pale
d. She stared at Jasmine with sheer terror. Her husband got to his feet, his expression grim.
“Yes.” His voice shook slightly. “She did. And so, I killed her.”
Jasmine’s throat was suddenly dry. She came to accuse them, yes, but hearing the confession… “Y-you did?”
“Joseph!” Rachel’s eyes widened. “You—”
“The baby needs you,” Joseph whispered back.
He turned to his wife and something passed between them. Something strong and intimate, the likes of which Jasmine had only ever read about in storybooks… and shared in some of her glances with Eneko. She sank into a chair, already knowing what was happening. Her gaze stayed on the tiny being in Rachel’s arm, resting peacefully unaware of what was happening outside of his little world.
Unaware that he was soon going to lose his father.
Joseph sank down beside his wife and hid his face in his hands. Eventually he nodded and looked up again. “I will go to the police. I don’t want an innocent man to go to jail for this, and Dr. Alava has two little children himself, doesn’t he?”
“Maite and Luken.” Jasmine’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Joseph took a moment to collect himself, then gently took his son from Rachel. He stroked the downy hair and sighed. “It started before Jana’s protests. She was very hostile towards Rachel and I, because she’s a shifter and I’m not. The night that she… that I killed her, she confronted us as we were walking home from Rachel’s work. She was drunk, and said that I was polluting my ‘pure’ lineage. I didn’t see the knife in her hand until she stabbed my wife in the stomach.”
Jasmine pressed her hands together, stomach roiling. Part of her wanted to just walk away. A man with a new baby shouldn’t have to go to jail… Especially since by the look on Rachel’s face, he was so clearly covering for his wife. Maybe it was selfish on Jasmine’s part, but she couldn’t stop him.
Luken and Maite needed their father. An innocent man couldn’t be jailed and they couldn’t lose their father.
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” Joseph continued. “I was just so angry. Rachel was healed by the time I realized what I had done. I took the woman to Dr. Alava’s clinic. I thought he might be able to save her… and I was too frightened to go to the police. There was no evidence that Rachel had been stabbed, not until now. Our son has a scar on his back. It was from Jana Adler attempting to kill him before he was even born.”
The Bear Shifter's Nanny (Fated Bears Book 3) Page 9
